The present invention relates to a method for designing a support which supports and/or packages one or more articles of manufacture. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method for designing a support wherein at least one computer generated model of the support is created and approval of the computer generated model is obtained prior to actually forming the support.
The manufacture and/or processing of articles of manufacture (e.g., finished products, components of products and/or tools for creating products) often requires the transfer or movement of such articles from one place or area to another place or area. For example, and without limitation, a part or component which is to be assembled may have to be shipped and/or transported from a production facility to an assembly facility. During the assembling or other processing of such articles of manufuacture, it is desirable to have supports (e.g., packaging materials such as boxes or supporting members such as racks) which package, support and/or house these articles in a manner that allows one or several articles to be moved efficiently and easily. For example, and without limitation, it is desirable to have a rack which can support and transfer several of the aforementioned components safely, easily and efficiently from one assembly line to another.
According to a traditional method, supports have been created, formed and/or manufactured as follows. A first person (e.g., a packaging engineer) would design a support for one or more articles of manufacture. Then, a first prototype of the support would be created and/or formed. The first prototype would then be tested and the testing would be followed by approval or disapproval of the support by a second person (e.g., a manufacturing engineer, a materials handling engineer and/or a production or assembly worker). If the design for the support was disapproved, the first person would have to then start from the design stage again and a second prototype would have to be produced. This cycle would have to be repeated until an acceptable support was formed.
However, designing, forming and/or manufacturing supports according to the above described traditional method presents drawbacks. For example, and without limitation, the traditional method of designing is inefficient because the method often requires multiple prototypes to be produced before a suitable support is formed. The production of multiple prototypes requires excess time and expenditure to form and/or create such prototypes.
Therefore, there is a need for a process and/or method for producing supports which minimizes or eliminates the need for creating prototypes of such supports.
It is a first object of the present invention to provide a method for designing and/or forming supports which overcomes the previously delineated drawbacks of conventional methods of designing and/or forming supports.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a method which uses computer generated models of supports to maximize the efficiency of manufacturing such supports.
According to a first aspect of the present invention a method for forming a support for transferring an article of manufacture is disclosed. The method includes the steps of: designing an electronic sample of an article of manufacture; designing an electronic model of the support; forming a computer file having the sample and the model, and the sample received by the model; and distributing the file for approval of the model.
According to a second aspect of the present invention a method for producing a support for transferring an article of manufacture is disclosed. The method includes the steps of: obtaining a computer generated sample of the article; designing a computer generated model of the support such that the computer generated model of the support will selectively receive the computer generated sample of the article; obtaining approval of the computer generated model of the support; and forming the support based on the model of the support.